


hidden beneath layers of skin

by Yifera



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel True Forms (Supernatural), Angst, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Set on season 13 or 14, Triggers, Wings, mentions of torture, spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-17 17:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16979130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yifera/pseuds/Yifera
Summary: Sam gets hit by a strange powder, and his perception of reality quickly crumbles down around him.Being the unfortunate trigger, Cas hopes he can also be part of the remedy.





	hidden beneath layers of skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CereittanyPrincess15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CereittanyPrincess15/gifts).



> This was my Sastiel Secret Santa submission! It's a bit longer than I initially planned... but that's what usually happens when I write angst.
> 
> In this little story I blatantly ignore some canon events about angels... but I don’t exactly write fanfics to be 100% faithful to canon, so fuck it. Also I love true angel forms and their unexploited potential. You can’t stop me.
> 
> (This one ain't beta'ed so please excuse any errors on my part!)

It’s just a simple spell.

When Sam jumps the witch and shoots her for good he’s not expecting her arms to spam, sending over him a thick cloud of the bright orange dust she had been holding. He hurries to close his eyes and cough but the damn thing sticks to his eyelashes and crawls into his nose. From the way his tongue feels dry and bitter he takes a guess that he has already swallowed some.

Sam cries out for Dean and his brother is there in an instant, all worried hands and focused quick questions. They don’t wait for it to make whatever effect it should. Sam can barely open his eyes so Dean half carries him by the shoulder, guiding him to their car as Dean makes calls to about four different people, one probably being Rowena because when they enter the car Dean seems convinced they have to take him back to the bunker and make her “look him up”.

Through all the ride Sam tries to keep his eyes closed as much as possible. The few times he doesn’t everything around him keeps doubling up in a mess of colors, too many, too bright... His ears are buzzing and he feels like puking more than once.

When they arrive Dean slowly takes him downstairs, until Rowena’s soft hands join his and guide Sam down into a bed. He can feel it’s not his, that’s good, he doesn’t want to get his room full of... Of what? Sam can’t remember now what he was so worried about that could dirty his bed.

The only thing he knows is that his head is killing him and his face feels sticky.

“You probably are just feeling overwhelmed, dear.” Rowena says when Sam tries to voice all this, as if it’s no big deal. She’s alternating between examining his face and quickly moving stuff around. Her voice sounds off, like it has a dull echo. “Let’s see if what you fools have been sticking your heads into is what I think.”

Sam is starting to have a hard time understanding her words now, slowly, he tries to open his eyes and turns to look at her.

But she... isn’t there.

In her place there is a dark—almost pitch black— wrinkled figure, with two round eyes that shine unblinking like a nightmare apparition.

Sam quickly backs away, falling from the bed when his limbs miscalculate the size of it. When he snaps his head up the dark figure is leaning towards him with stretched arms and sharp claws. Sam yells, scrambling to his feet to get the fuck out of the room.

Rowena is calling for him. But she isn’t there.

Dean stops him before he can get to the door. Sam can recognize his voice and the familiar touch of his hands… but his form is just a blur of colors, of too much details. Freckles, green, the fabric of his shirt, every single hidden gray hair growing on his temples… Sam can’t see the general picture, his brother is all little details he can’t focus on. What is going on? Everything is spinning around him way too fast, looking too deformed and strange.

Sam can’t even focus on why or where he is anymore.

He tries to close his eyes, but the black figure approaches again from behind Dean and Sam lashes out from his grasp. But when he tries to attack whatever that creature is a pair of strong arms hold him down from behind. He yells and kicks and tries to fight back, but the grip is unrelenting and keeps him flush to the ground. Too many voices ask him to stop. But one rises almost overwhelming over the rest.

“Sam. Stop.”

And Sam does.

Because that was barely a voice, but screeching bells and a chorus of long unearthly whispers. And still, Sam understood what it had said.

He shouldn’t be able to. He shouldn’t even be able to be hearing this. He knows he shouldn’t. There’s no reason for him to be able to. The only other times he has...

No, he can’t think about that.

But Sam knows he has experienced this before. He has. So many times. All the air leaves his lungs and he’s left gaping when he realizes this might also be one of them. But he thought this time... He thought... Oh, god. Not this time. Please, not this one.

His mind goes back to that dark place, to the one he has sworn to never look back. And yet he does like it’s a long-forgotten reflex. Because this is how it always happens, he thinks he is safe, he thinks he’s with everyone again, that he can have a life no matter how dysfunctional or truly fulfilling... only to be ripped from it. A cruel unmerciful endless mockery. Again and again and again. It’s always like this.

But, no, no, it can’t be, not again. It has been years, it can’t be...

With his hand clenched around his heart —he clings to it, not ready to let it fall to the ground and break it to shreds— Sam slowly crooks his neck to look over his shoulder. The arms holding him down are human... and not. They quickly fade out of sight into blinding light and blue. Grace flows around Sam. Over him. It’s everywhere, it fills the room, it looms on top of him like a distorted giant. It delineates wings filled with countless eyes that blink down at him in perfect synchrony, expressionless and yet too wide and too symmetrical, they look as if they are vibrating all at once.

Sam opens his hand then and his heart falls.

_It never changes, Sam. You will never get out._

Sam closes his eyes and begins screaming.

.

When Sam cries out as if his heart is being ripped from his chest, everyone falls silent for a second, Dean takes a step back from where he had been helping Cas hold him down, as if burnt, and when this makes Sam’s efforts to escape the more desperate Cas reaches for his forehead and sends him to sleep. Sam falls limp in his hands, tear tracks shining wet against the skin not covered in the still lingering orange powder.

Dean is the first to speak.

“What did you do, Cas?” He says, kneeling to look over his brother.

“He was going to hurt himself, Dean.” Cas snaps back.

“Before.” Dean shakes his head. “He looked like... he was scared of you. To say it lightly.”

“I... I don’t know.”

Cas looks down at Sam, equally confused, because he hadn’t done anything, he just entered the room a moment ago... and yet, Sam’s terrified expression when he looked at him grips at his insides like a claw.

“Remember he looked scared of me too.” Rowena adds, and Cas doesn’t know if that should make him feel any better.

Dean grunts something about witches, pulling Sam from the ground to take him back into the bed.

“Rowena, do you know what it is?” He asks in this imperative gruff tone he adopts when he is about a second from punching something out of stress.

She only takes a moment to look down at her hands, at the little sample she had taken of the powder.

“Yes. It’s an insight enhancement. But I don’t understand, this spell is not... it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.” Rowena frowns, looking like she’s not enjoying this blank in her magic knowledge. “Well, it’s not usually used this raw of course, or you wouldn’t be able to control what or how much is that you want to feel or see...” She suddenly gasps and snaps a hand. “Oh, that’s it!”

“What?” Dean snaps his head up from where he had settled next to the bed, cleaning with a piece of cloth the remains of the damned powder from his brother’s face. “Is he like... having hallucinations?”

“It seems like quite the opposite.” She says, looking a lot more fascinated than neither Cas or Dean would like given the situation.

“He’s... perceiving too much.” Cas mumbles, suddenly understanding. “When he looked at Rowena and me, he didn’t see our normal appearances. But our true forms.”

Rowena grimaces. “Ah, that must have not been a pretty sight.”

“What? How is that even possible?” Dean blinks at Cas with huge eyes. “Isn’t your true form like... too overwhelming for humans?”

“Your brother was made to host an archangel, Dean. The limits of his body and senses are much greater than normal.” Cas says, and turns impatient to Rowena. “Can it cause him any harm?”

“Not any that I can think of. It’s usually a helping spell, angel, not a curse.” Rowena looks like she’s about to roll her eyes.

Cas insists. “Well, how can we reverse it? He’s obviously highly distressed by this.”

“Obviously.” Rowena throws a knowing smile at Cas. “Don’t get your feathers in a ruffle, gorgeous. It’s effects will eventually pass, then you can smooch the lad as much as you like.”

“That’s not— that’s out of place, I—”

Even when it’s not true that he and Sam are in that kind of relationship, he suspects pretty much everyone already knows he would be more than eager for that to happen. He can swear he hears Dean snort shortly. So, Cas stops himself before he can dig himself into a deeper hole.

“How long?” He grunts instead, not pleased with just having to sit and wait it out.

“A few hours. You can maybe blindfold him or something until then.” Rowena swats a hand, already back to her relaxed behaviour. “Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have other places to be. Please remind Sam when he awakens that no matter what he saw, I still do a great job remaining gorgeous on the outside."

Dean looks at her with a slight disturbed expression as she walks out of the room, then he sighs.

“Well, there’s that.” He runs both hands through his hair, clearly as distressed as Cas about the whole waiting situation. “Jesus fuck, I almost had a heart attack. I mean, seeing him look so...” Dean stops for a moment, a shadow falling over his face as he looks down at Sam, Cas stays silent. “I need a beer. Or two.”

He looks up at Cas then, his hand is still grasping Sam’s arm like he needs the physical contact to know he’s there. Cas easily reads the question in Dean’s vulnerable gaze.

“You should go take a rest, Dean.” Even when Cas is sure Dean is just going to try get himself mildly drunk, he wishes he would just take a nap or a shower after such a long hunt. “I will watch over Sam.”

Dean swallows and nods, he walks out of the room with a steady step and clenched fists. Cas decides to close the door before taking his place by Sam’s side.

He tries to focus his worry into thinking about what he should do when Sam wakes up.

Castiel doesn’t think the man is going to be any calmer the second time he sees him if the effects of the spell remain. For a moment he takes into consideration the blindfold idea, at least until he can explain what’s going on... but that would probably imply tying Sam down too, which Cas isn’t willing to do unless it’s truly necessary. At least there is nothing in the room that Sam could immediately use as a weapon, Castiel is confident he could stop any possible attack on Sam’s part without causing him any harm.

He hopes it won’t come to that. He actually hopes his grace can keep Sam unconscious enough for Dean to come back and avoid any situation that implies Sam seeing his true form again. Something about the way Sam reacted... makes him suspect there could be more there than just a natural fear at seeing something so inhuman.

There is no luck for him though, as only a few minutes pass before Sam jumps awake.

Castiel is momentarily stunned, either his grace is weaker than he had thought to be or Sam has been developing some kind of immunity to its effects over the years.

Sam could have used that second of his confusion to try dash out of the room again, but instead he curls into himself, panic slowly shifting into anger as he looks around the room. Everywhere but at Castiel.

Then he starts speaking, and if Castiel had been dumbfounded before it has nothing to do with how he feels now.

Sam doesn’t raise his head but there is no doubt that he’s talking to Castiel. Because, even when it’s rough and angry and Sam slurs the words like they are a curse... he is speaking enochian.

“God, why am I still here?” Sam fists the sheets around him and shoves them aside until they are left hanging over a far edge of the bed, almost as if he’s disgusted by their touch. “What is it? Do you want me to beg?”

Castiel’s mind tumbles between Sam’s words and the fact that he didn't know Sam was able to speak enochian so fluently.

Castiel carefully keeps talking in english. “Sam, I don’t understand. It’s me, Castiel.”

“Why don’t you drop the act already?” Sam groans, his face contorting into a pained grimace. “Or maybe you are just bragging.” Sam takes his head into his hands. “You always do. And why shouldn’t you?” He snarls, his hands curl around his hair in an aggressive grip. “This is your biggest fucking accomplishment so far. I believed everything. Maybe the first year or two I doubted but...” He pauses for a moment and then one of his fists flies against the headboard, something cracks. “You won, alright! Game over!”

A crippling fear settles inside Castiel, but the only thing he can think now is that this was a mistake. He shouldn’t have been here when Sam woke up.

“I am sorry, Sam. I can see my presence upsets you, I will call Dean...” He tries, even when he thinks he might be starting to understand who Sam thinks he’s talking to.

“No! No!” Sam’s terrified eyes almost look up at him, but the man closes them tightly before they can go further from Castiel’s knees. “Stop. Please, please, just make it stop. I can’t—” He curls even more into a ball, he’s trembling. “Do anything else to me, whatever you want. Just not this, not when I know it’s not—” A stab of pain goes through Cas when Sam’s voice breaks into a sob. “Please, just, please...”

Castiel realizes then. It falls like a puzzle, not only who Sam thinks he’s talking to, but where he thinks he is. The only other place Sam has seen an angel’s true form before. Cas sees Sam uncurl slowly, can’t help to take a step back in horror when he realizes the man is half bent into a pleading posture.

“I beg of you, please, please, please... I can’t take it... I can’t...”

“Sam...” Castiel doesn’t think he has felt so much pain than when he says the next words. “Do you think... you are in the Cage?”

Lucifer’s Cage. A time Sam never talks about and that Castiel had only got a glimpse of when he had taken the pain of Sam’s broken wall so many years ago. A glimpse that had rendered Castiel insane for months.

“For a hundred years, and a thousand more.” Sam’s voice is wet with tears but there’s no life in it. “I’ll always be here.”

A year, that was the time Sam’s soul had spent in the Cage. A year that down there translated into over a hundred years of pain, a hundred years where Michael and Lucifer had enough time to get tired of themselves, to torture Sam and Adam instead more and more. A hundred years for them to get creative.

And Castiel understands. He understands more than probably anyone on Earth could. Because years back he had let all this pain flow into him in a hospital bed. He had understood then that there hadn’t been only physical pain in the years of torture behind the wall. That the worse torture had been when there hadn’t seem to be any.

And it was sick. To think Sam had had to experience the lie that he was free, before unmercifully be brought back to reality, trapped in his personal hell for all eternity... How many times had they done this? For how long?

Enough. Enough for it to be the first thing that manifested as an hallucination when the wall first cracked. Enough for Sam to believe now that the last eight years of his life had only been another elaborated torture.

And Castiel doesn’t know how he’s going to convince him otherwise. Eight years of peace are nothing on a century of pain.

“Sam, that’s not true. You got out of the Cage.” He finally says, even when he knows nothing he says will possibly be enough. “I got you out of the Cage.”

“What is this, a re-run?” Sam breaths out a broken thing that can barely be called a chuckle. “I don’t know how I believed that, I didn’t at first but... you made Cas change so much, he was so...” He chocked, his voice getting back to a thin line, he hides under his long hair. “Please, please, just stop it.”

“No, no, Sam.” Castiel aches to reach for Sam, but he doesn’t, afraid he will break his friend completely. “That was real, this is real... how can I—?”

He desperately searches for a way. There has to be something that will make Sam see he is still here, that Castiel isn’t...

“Sam…” He slowly takes a step away from the bed. “You have seen Michael and Lucifer’s true forms more than I would wish you’ll ever had to.” Cas says, slowly, as gently as he can. He prays this will work. “I need you to look up at me, Sam.”

Sam stays silent for a torturous amount of seconds. He eventually shakes his head, curling back and hugging his knees as if he wants to disappear.

“No.”

“Sam, please, I am not an archangel. Nor am I my brothers.” Cas pleads, he can’t let Sam spiral down this road anymore than he already has. “I know it is too much, but look at me. I need you to see.”

.

Sam knows what he is expecting when he finally raises his head, when he gives up to whatever sadistic game his everlasting torturers are about to pull on him. And it is, the whole slender silver body with gigantic wings peppered with countless eyes remains just like he remembers... But also, it doesn’t. And Sam is shook to the bone as he looks. Really looks.

He searches, frantic, for a few seconds. Takes in every limb, light and feather before him. But there’s nothing. Nothing of the barbed bleeding beauty of Lucifer. None of the incisive squared edges of Michael. Of their multiple heads and masks, of their colossal halos...

The creature before him is humbler in its alien beauty. Its long limbs and torso are all simple planes in soft silver blues. Some of them full of light, powerful, but not overflowing. One single featureless face curves slightly towards him, a lone enochian symbol is carved on its surface. Its graceful lines bleed grace in a continuous silver waterfall, it streams down to the round bottom of the otherwise plain mask and disappears in the white radiance of its long neck.

“Castiel?”

Feathers tremble as the million eyes on them blink and stay closed for a moment, the enormous set of wings retreat back a little, as if the angel is trying to look unthreatening before Sam’s fearful eyes. The head bows a little more towards him.

“Do you see me, Sam?”

His voice is still chimes and whispers. But Sam doesn’t dismiss the differences this time. They linger in the air like a melodic breeze.

“Cas?” Sam whispers again, this time in english. He hates himself for how hopeful he sounds, and still he’s not able to feel otherwise.

The eyes flicker for a moment, but they remain closed, the head nods.

“I thought you got to see me when I took your body out of the Cage but... I guess that memory isn’t something any of us want to come back to. It may be for the best.”

The different tones in the unearthly voice interlace into something so soft, so loving, so sad, so... Cas, that Sam’s hand reaches forward almost on instinct, the longing that he usually keeps buried for his friend feels almost suffocating now.

“But... No. How can I...?”

Sam hand retreats, doubt and confusion crippling back on his chest. Because he shouldn’t be able to see an angel’s form, or hear its voice, the only way he knows... the only way it makes sense, would be for him to still be in the Cage.

But Cas —oh god, please, let it really be Cas— seems to understand Sam’s unfinished question.

“It’s a spell, Sam. As a former archangel’s vessel it is rendering you able to see things you wouldn’t otherwise.” The wings flutter a little. “You can temporally see through human-looking creatures. Like you did with Rowena before me.”

“A... spell?”

Little flashes of the day manage to crawl back into Sam’s panicked mind. A hunt. An ill-tasting sticky orange powder... The black nightmarish apparition where Rowena should have been standing.

“Yes, Sam. Just a spell.”

And Sam doesn’t know if he should, but he wants to believe him. That he is really here. And this has all been just an unhappy coincidence. A trigger.

Sam looks around, even when everything still appears to be way too over-detailed and distorted... his eyes search for the little things he is so familiar with, he takes them in, finding in them both comfort and more doubt.

“It’s not material. You can still touch, if it’s too much to believe what you see.” Cas says, and Sam knows he is now looking up at the angel with too much hope in his eyes.

Sam opens his mouth, but finds he can’t bring himself to ask, not to this imposing celestial being.

But Cas, like before, seems to just get it. Slowly a bright white-blue hand reaches for Sam’s. The touch is nothing that Sam is expecting, neither the texture or the size of it... there’s a disconnection between his senses here, and Sam’s brain is unable to catch up to it.

“Close your eyes, Sam. It will be easier.”

Sam does. It takes him a moment to concentrate on the touch and not the image he had in front of him just a second ago, but when he does something unwinds from his chest.

It’s Cas.

Sam doesn’t know how he can recognize Cas’ hand so easily only by touch, but he knows it is his. He cradles it with his other hand too, probing at the wide palm and long fingers that stay pliant under Sam’s almost frantic touch.

At this point he doesn’t even think about it, searching for more confirmation Sam reaches upward until he can feel the familiar and slightly rough material of Cas’ trench coat. He feels Cas’ hand closing around his then, and for a moment Sam thinks he’s about to stop him, but Cas let’s him continue his travel upwards, only gently guiding him.

A pathetic whimper comes out of Sam when he feels Cas’ jaw under his fingers. He lets Cas lead his movement and Sam paws at his stubble, his cheekbone, his straight nose... Sam can feel Cas eyelashes flutter against his skin as he pads at his always slightly furrowed brows.

“Cas... I... I thought I...”

“I know.” Castiel shushes him, and although he can still hear him as the celestial powerful being he is, Sam swears he can pick up Cas deep human voice too. “But you are here. You are safe.” It’s rough, it’s gentle, it feels like home. “I got you, Sam.”

Sam knows he’s saying his name then, over and over, he says it until his voice cracks and he has to fist his hands on the clothes before him, because they feel real and solid and like all Sam could possibly ever want. He buries his face in them and cries.

He asks for forgiveness between fat tears that run into his mouth.

He says Cas’ name some more.

Gentle warm hands cradle him and Sam begs and begs and begs for all of this to not disappear.

.

Even when Castiel feels they had managed to overcome a terrible down for Sam’s mind, he knows this won’t be the end of it. He knows Sam. And he knows the man will doubt the integrity of his reality for days, months... maybe for the rest of his life.

And maybe he has already, since he got out of the Cage. Maybe Sam had been fighting this fear all along to this day, alone, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So Castiel takes a vow.

As he holds Sam’s trembling form in his arms until the door opens and Dean quickly runs to join them, Castiel vows to be there for him every single time he starts to break.

As Sam tries and fails to not be vulnerable every time he sees his brother for the next couple days, Castiel vows to be thankful to be where they are and remember the path that has taken all of them here.

As Sam startles and zones out a little when Jack and other hunters show him affection and concern, Castiel vows to not let him believe he is not worthy of the good things he has now.

Sam still reaches sometimes at odd times to touch Castiel’s hand, clothes, or even his face... and Castiel lets him every time as he vows to love Sam Winchester like he hasn’t let himself do before.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope that was good <3<3  
> Please leave me a comment if you liked it, I would love to read what you think, kudos are lovely too of course!


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